


“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”

by sighingfawn



Series: more than my scars. [3]
Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:40:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1568144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sighingfawn/pseuds/sighingfawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a space in between the sun setting and the darkness that follows, a pause in time in which secrets can be told and honesty is the only thing that will do. Juice just needed a little bit longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”

**Author's Note:**

> They're not dating in this one. Thank you all so much for reading and being super lovely about it!!

The day is blindingly bright with the morning sun causing heat to roll from the pavement in heavy waves, signalling that the day is just going to get hotter so it’s no surprise that when Jax walks into the clubhouse he announces that Juice needs to find his speakers and laptop, Tig and Opie need to grab all the alcohol they can find and then everybody needs to get the fuck in the yard. Jax had decided that no work was going to be done that day before his eyes were even open because everybody, especially himself, needed a day off. The cheer he receives is followed by the boys scrambling to do their jobs with Juice almost stumbling over his feet.  
Summer always makes him slow.  
Juice walks through the clubhouse with his laptop and speakers jumbled in his arms, he feels sluggish and useless as the lead drops to the floor and catches. He can feel his cheeks going red despite the clubhouse being empty and juggling everything to his left arm he runs his right hand over his face in frustration. He’s wearing a hoodie over his t-shirt and it’s making his skin prickle. He know’s he looks like a fucking idiot when it’s this warm out but he can’t risk the others seeing his cuts and scars. The contrast between the dim clubhouse and the yard of Teller-Morrow make him drop his speakers completely. His face burns again as everybody laughs,  
“C’mon.” Chibs is reaching his arms out and Juice stares. “Laptop.” He’s talking quietly, like he’s trying to save Juice more embarrassment. “You’ll have to plug it all in, I don’t know a fucking thing.” It’s then Juice realises that he’s trying to keep their conversation just between them.  
“I could show you.” He says before reaching down and scooping the speakers up.  
“S’alright boy. Too fucking hot for all that.” Chibs sets the laptop on top of a table. “Want a beer?”  
“Yeah.” Juice says absently as he starts setting the speakers up and scrolling through his Itunes.  
The bottle is suddenly cold in his hand and feels lighter than a full bottle. He licks his lips and tastes Coors.  
148, the voice says.  
Juice sets the bottle down beside his laptop and runs his damp palm over his face, he can’t be like this today, not here. He swallows down more of the beer.  
“Alright?” Chibs is looking at him intently, sitting close behind his laptop, and Juice wonders how much time he missed.  
“Yeah. Fucking hate summer.” Juice begins scrolling through his Itunes playlist, looking for a song Chibs might like.  
“It’s that fucking hoodie lad.”  
“I’m fine.” He says too quickly. Chibs downs his beer and looks at Juice for a second before standing up and heading over to one of the coolers. He comes back with a bottle of Jack Daniels and passes it to Juice before sitting down.  
“Drink.”  
The sun was beginning to set but the carefree attitude that had engulfed the day remained, drawing Gemma, who had joined them around three, and Tig into multiple games of beer pong. They had all gathered round to watch as Gemma, to Tigs and Jax’s dismay, won for the third time. It was as Jax was preparing to play Gemma that Chibs nudged Juice away and back onto the bench where they had first sat.  
“Everything okay?” Juice asks nervously with his hands knotting in the sleeves of his hoodie.  
“Yeah. Just wanted to talk lad.” Chibs drains the last of a warm beer. “It’s been a good day.”  
“Feels like home,” Juice mumbles and something in the air changes.  
“I know ye think you don’t fit in here, that you’re just a dumb kid but ye not.” The honesty in Chibs voice forces the air from Juice.  
“I don’t-”  
Chibs cuts him off. “You’re their brother as much as me. Don’t think any less.”  
Juice nods dumbly and Chibs takes a deep breath.  
“Everybody has scars lad.” He’s talking quietly again.  
“I know.”  
“You don’t have to hide them.” He gestures to Juice’s hoodie with one hand while the other searches for a pack of smokes in his pocket.  
“I’m not.”  
“Lad you’ve sweated in it all day. C’mon.” Chibs offers Juice the pack and lights it before his own.  
Juice closes his eyes. “They’re not just scars.”  
Chibs nudges him with his elbow and nods his head in the direction of the others ”They won’t think any less.”  
Yes they will, the voice laughs. He’s lying.  
“My da broke my nose when I was six.” Juice blinks three times as he processes what Chibs has just told him. “He came home and punched me. Lost a pub bet or somethin’ and I got in the way.”  
“Christ.” Juice’s stomach twists in anger. Six years old.  
The reasonable part of Juice’s brain tries to make him relate these feelings to his own childhood experiences but Chibs needs him, he argues.  
“That wasn’t the worst. He would try to break any bone he could, burn me, throw bottles at me. Anything. I don’t hide it, not even the nightmares.” He can hear the tension in Chibs voice and suddenly wants to do anything to make it better, to go back and fix it all.  
Juice breathes out. “I’m not hiding.”  
“You’re not the same person you was back then Juicy.”  
Yeah, I’m worse, Juice thinks.  
“I don’t know.”  
“He kept doing that until the minute I left. I was eighteen then Juicy, it wasn’t my fault when I was six and it wasn’t when I was eighteen. ”  
“I… I feel like I let it happen.” His voice sounds all twisted and strange and in the new darkness he can feel Chibs stare at him.  
“My da used to drink and gamble and lose. Then he’d come home and find me. The fuck was I supposed to do as a kid, lad?” They sit in quietly for a minute as the others explode in laughter, igniting the darkness like fireworks.  
Darkness has always made Juice more vulnerable and sitting beside Chibs and knowing that somebody else’s childhood was fucking fucked makes him feel somewhat better. He suddenly gets the desire to tell Chibs everything, starting with showing him the scars.  
Like he would care, the voice repeats.  
“How do you make them stop?” Juice asks suddenly, the words racing out of his mouth.  
“The nightmares?” Juice nods. “You don’t. You just get better at learning it’s not your fault.” Chibs lights another smoke and Juice mirrors his actions.  
I’m tired Chibbie. Juice mouths in the darkness.  
“We’re here y’know lad. I’m here.”  
Juice nods and turns to look at Chibs. “I’m so tired.”  
Chibs leans over in the darkness and rests his shoulder against Juice’s.  
“Aren’t we all lad.”  
Juice savours the touch before he throws his cigarette to the ground and twists his body so he can rest his head on the bench. He can’t look at Chibs any longer, if he does his whole tragic fucking story will come spilling out. Everything seems so much louder now.  
They wouldn’t believe you anyway, the voice laughs.  
“It’s been a good day.” Juice says into his arms, hoping that he said it loud enough for Chibs to hear.  
“Aye Juicy.”


End file.
